Random thoughts of me

Lately, I've been reflecting on my life and my approach to life. And there are some things that I feel I may need to adjust. One of the things I've been thinking about is my focus and my priorities. We're conditioned to look out for the big things in life. The big opportunities, the big obstacles, the big dreams, etc... And while the big things are indeed important, they are generally few and far between. And when they do come along, they are like icebergs drifting through the ocean. They move quickly, but they are easily seen and move predictably. But in life, it's seldom the big opportunities, the big obstacles, or the big dreams that are the deciding factors. More often than not, it's the little things that trip us up, the little things that elevate us to the next level, and the little things that bring us life's greatest joys. The hiker doesn't look for boulders. Yes, the hiker is aware of the boulders, but it's not the boulders that concern the hiker most. It's the small stones, the loose rocks, the protruding tree roots, and the uneven footings that the hiker pays the most attention to. Because it is these things that are most likely to trip up the hiker and cause injury. So while the boulders are indeed consequential and thus remain always in the periphery of the hiker's mind, it is these many so-called "little things" that are most urgent at any given moment. It's easy to become fixated on the icebergs and boulders in our life. They are the most imposing and therefor the most distracting aspects of life. And in focusing only on the icebergs and boulders, we are unable to avoid the little obstacles that trip us up along the way. The uneven footings, the loose rocks, and all the other things that are small and otherwise easily overcome, become insurmountable barriers. So yes, I will dream big... and yes, I will be aware of the icebergs and boulders... but I will also try to not forget to watch where I'm stepping.

Rant

A bit of a rant I felt I needed to get off of my chest lately. I apologize in advance if I offend anyone.

Commence ranting.

One of the difficulties I find with Facebook, is when the people I care about post things that to me seem hateful and hurtful. As I'm sure many people feel about the stuff I've posted. I apologize if I've offended anyone, but I believe what I believe, just like you believe 

what you believe. And surprise surprise, I even believe that my beliefs do not contradict my Christian faith. While I am not one for labels, I have accepted that over the years my views have largely become aligned with what might be called liberal views. For this I make no apology, it is where my personal studies of Scripture and Theology have brought me. If you feel that this shift in my views now disqualifies me from being a child of God, or that I have damned myself, then I am sorry you feel that way. And I apologize further for thinking you are wrong in your assessment. Contrary to what some of you may or may not think, I do not believe the things I do because I hate God, hate the USA, hate the Republicans, hate rich people, or hate Scripture. Furthermore, I do not believe what I believe because I love evil, want people to be lazy, want free stuff from the government, like communism, want everyone in the World to be atheist, or because I don't want people to be awarded according to their contribution. On the contrary, I believe what I believe for almost the exact opposite of those reasons. I am not the Devil, nor am I the Anti-Christ. I am a Christian, in many ways like you are, but in other ways not like you. This is so whether or not your theology allows for people like me to be Christian. I believe that you believe what you believe out of love of God and love of neighbor, even if I sometimes have difficulty understanding how that is so. I only ask for the same courtesy in return.

Ranting concluded. Thank you. :o)

Random thought

I find it very interesting that people are now speaking out against the boycott of Chic-Fil-A as unfair, because all its owner did was "share his opinion". But many of them were perfectly fine with, and even called for and supported a boycott of JC Penny because they hired Ellen DeGeneres as their spokesperson. Now I'm not calling anyone a hypocrite... but you gotta admit, it does seem suspiciously similar to inconsistency to me.

Having said that... as a Christian I am not a big fan of boycotting. While I support people's right to boycott, I believe that they are rarely ever effective in the way that they are intended to be. Lets face it, even if the boycott achieves its goal of reduced revenue for its intended target. Who does that hurt? The CEO who makes his millions/billions regardless or the employees who need these jobs to keep a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. And the unintended consequences as well as the unintended victims of a boycott increase exponentially as the boycott finds more "success". This is why I did not support it when it was used against JC Penny for hiring Ellen as their spokesperson, nor do I support it now that it is being used against Chic-Fil-A for the views espoused by its CEO. For the record, I do not agree with Dan Cathy's position on the subject, but he has every right to express it as well as support the groups that share his views.

While a boycott is the freedom of every American, is that the loving thing to do? Can we as Christians justify the things we do and say in response to our "enemies". I do believe I once read somewhere that we are to love our enemies. Are we loving our enemies? Are we turning the other cheek? Are we genuinely attempting to enter into a loving discourse with our opposition? If we truly care about the things that we purport to care about, then are we really doing every thing we can to bring those things to fruition? Are we cutting off the nose to spite the face?

What is Normal?

"The real hopeless victims of mental illness are to be found among those who appear to be most normal. 

Many of them are normal because they are so well adjusted to our mode of existence, because their human voice has been silenced so early in their lives, that they do not even struggle or suffer or develop symptoms as the neurotic does.

They are normal not in what may be called the absolute sense of the word; they are normal only in relation to a profoundly abnormal society.

Their perfect adjustment to that abnormal society is a measure of their mental sickness. These millions of abnormally 'normal' people, living without fuss in a society to which, if they were fully human beings, they ought not to be adjusted.”

― Aldous Huxley

Once upon a time, I believed that I was "normal". Normal in the sense that I thought that the way I saw and understood the world was the way everyone saw and understood the world. I thought that I was only unique in that I could not express my views accurately enough for others to understand them. But that if I could only express myself more articulately, that others would come to understand that I too was thinking the same things that they were. But try as I might, I could not convince others that I was normal in the way that they were normal. I could not understand why this was so, because I had come to achieve what I thought a reasonable articulation of speech. Yet alas my words were still not in sync with those of the people around me. This is when it occurred to me that, perhaps what I lacked was not the ability to communicate my understanding of the world in a way consistent with the way others communicate them, but that what I lacked was the ability to perceive the world correctly at all. So the focus of my effort would shift from correct expression to correct perception. I would have to relearn how to perceive the world accurately, the way as it would seem to me, that everyone else in the world had managed to do. A lesson in life that had somehow managed to evade only me. I quickly deduced that I could not see the world the way others could, because I was not open minded enough to do so. Consequently I determined that in order that I should learn to perceive the world correctly, I would have to learn to open my mind to the truths that others seemed to see so easily. If the enemy of accurate perception was a closed mind, I was determined to have the most open mind that I was capable of having. I believed that surely, if I worked hard enough, I could achieve an acceptable level of open mindedness to be able to glimpse even a marginally accurate view of the world. But alas my efforts would yield only disappointment, because try as I might, I could not manage to see the world the way others said they did. But why such a disparity between my description of the world and other's descriptions of the world? Why did I have to be such a freak? That is something I still struggle with to this day.


Recently I have been told that I suffer from a disability and several disorders of the mind. I was diagnosed with ADHD, as well as anxiety disorder, and several other things which are along the same lines as the first two. I was told that I can be accommodated, so that I can be accurately evaluated on my abilities to do what others do. But what if I was not meant to do what others do? What if I was meant to be different? What if I was meant to do something that no one has done before? What if this new thing required me to take a route not often taken by others? What if to succeed in this task, I had to appear to others to be a failure? What if I had to fail in order that I might succeed at my purpose? Would I have the courage to be seen as a failure? Would I be able to fail in the conventional sense of the word, so that the meaning of failure can be reevaluated? Someone recently told me (in a Facebook comment) that I needed to stop living for other people and to start living for myself. Reading that, I realized that I had been making a large amount of my life decisions on the basis of the expectations of others. I can not continue to live like this anymore. It is tearing me apart on the inside. I have been doing a great deal of reassessing the choices of my life and where I am, and where I plan to be in the future. It has also recently occurred to me, that on my current trajectory I will end up nowhere near the places that I want to be. I found that at best, I would not be miserable, but that I would also never be truly happy. Given that, I feel it behoove of me to draw up a plan that will take me to where I can feel fulfilled and with purpose to my life.


Despite all my efforts to be like everyone else. I never managed to have a sense that I was like my peers. So I pretended to be like them, so that I could be accepted, so that I could feel like I was normal. I am through with pretending, not that I was ever really all that good at pretending anyway. I am now trying to discover and understand who I am, so that I can be me more fully and completely me. So begins my quest to find myself, a journey which has begun long ago, but which I have only recently begun to understand. This is a journey that will never end, but it is a journey that I feel I must take in order to be happy. But this much is certain to me now. If normal means to think in a way consistent with the way most people do, then I am not normal, nor would I ever want to be normal. For better or worse, I will ever only be and ever only want to be, ME.

The First Inch.

I've had this blog for a while, but have never posted anything. A good friend of mine (really more of a big sister), suggested that I start by copying and pasting a status update from my Facebook. So here goes nothing. :o)

My Facebook post:

I am not functioning well these days. The truth is I haven't been functioning well for quite some time. As I look back on my life, it defies every ounce of my understanding that I could be anything but completely useless. Yet somehow I have managed to at least partially evade that fate thus far. I have managed for the better part of my life to appear to be normal functioning, whatever that means. But the truth is I am not. I have struggled my entire life to complete even the simplest of tasks. Not because I am not capable of performing those tasks per se. But because my mind can not help but get in its own way. People have always chocked it up to my laziness and I did nothing to dissuade them. Perhaps to be thought of as simply lazy, was preferable to being thought of as defective. But the truth is I am defective. My brain has never functioned as smoothly or as quickly as those of my peers. I have always been prone to distraction and day dreaming. But as I face the reality of getting older and eventually having to be on my own (truth be told I should already be on my own), I am paralyzed by the fear of the inevitability that I will fall flat on my face. It can happen no other way. All that I am capable of is failure, yet for some reason I have been given more opportunity and second chances than is warranted by anything I have ever done or accomplished. Don't believe the hype. I am not more than what I seem to be. If anything I am way less than what I seem to be. Never before have I felt so inadequate, yet so strangely at peace with my fate, whatever it happens to be.